HOW TO MAKE LOVE LIKE A PORN STAR: A CAUTIONARY TALE
Less than one month ago, Vice Presidential nominee John Edwards addressed the Democratic National Convention and spoke about the "Two Americas" that exist in the United States today; One possesses the vast majority of the nation’s wealth and offers a true experience of the American dream. The other, which is struggling to keep their children fed and a roof over their head. A towheaded child named Jenna Massoli a.k.a
Jenna Jameson, grew up in this other America. She lost her mother to cancer at age five, a tragedy from which her father never recovered. He lost himself in his police work and left Jenna and her brother alone for almost all of their waking hours. Neglect and insecurity burrowed into her psyche as she grew into the looks that she inherited from her showgirl mother. She soon fell in with the wrong crowd and it wasn’t long before she began dating a meth addicted biker/tattoo artist, dropped out of high school and began stripping. After years of physical and emotional abuse, he left her for dead with nothing but an addiction to meth. Normally, a story like this would be tailor made for a tale of woe fitting of Edwards’ "other America". However, this tale ends with poor Jenna becoming the biggest porn star ever known and is a household name to both porn’s biggest fans and detractors alike. How she got from that dingy Las Vegas apartment to being featured on a Times Square billboard is meticulously told in her autobiography
How to Make Love Like a Porn Star: A Cautionary Tale which she co-wrote with Neil Strauss (
The Dirt with MÖTLEY CRÜE ,
The Long Hard Road Out of Hell with MARILYN MANSON). Strauss has become a top scribe in the tell-all book market, while developing a reputation for co-writing books with celebrities who have hidden drugs in more books than they’ve read.
This book could easily have been thrown together in a few weeks and sold as a glorified porno magazine. However, Strauss earned his keep with this book and portrays Jenna as an actual person with complex thoughts and feelings, not just the girl who has tripled the sale of Kleenex. The tome spans over five hundred pages as it tells Jenna’s story in her own voice, complete with diary entries and childhood photos. For those who actually bother to read the book, we learn what makes Jenna tick and how she overcame the pitfalls of the typical stripper/porn star life. It continues to follow her career as she comes closer than any porn star ever has to cracking mainstream Hollywood. Lucky for Strauss, there are several dozen pictures of Jameson “au natural” to keep the reader picking up the book and eventually reading at least part of it.
While
Jameson and Strauss want you to actually
read the book, they both know that the horny men to whom this book is marketed to want more "practical" information i.e. how can I date a porn star, how can I become a porn star and does size really matter. These hairy palmed simians will find entire chapters dedicated to these important questions, some of which are answered in comic strip form, which come as quite a welcome breather after reading Jenna’s umpteenth diary entry. Porn enthusiasts will find a grin creeping onto their faces as she reminisces about her first time on camera with adult film legend
Peter North, who is known as "the best dick in the business" and "can shoot come by the quart" as well as her marathon 156 minute scene with woodsman
T.T. Boy in which he had no less than
SIX orgasms. A feat so impressive even STING would gape in amazement.
While
How to Make Love Like A Porn Star may not be great literature (even though the chapter titles are quotations from Shakespearian sonnets) it is a fun and entertaining read about a girl who had nothing but her bombshell looks and street smarts to live off. She worked both to her advantage and in her own way achieved the American Dream despite her class and education. This may not be the "rags to riches" tale like Rockefeller or Vanderbilt, but it is an achievement of the American Dream all the same. Who knows, maybe this is the story that the G.O.P. is looking for to blast the Edward’s "Two Americas" theory all to Hell and get Bush his coveted second term. It would be only fitting to have a porn star extraordinaire make sure there is a man named Bush in the White House.
